Child neglect is pretty bad but 21 years in the slammer is a long time.. until you consider:

Neatherlin's rap sheet dates back to 2007, when she was charged with multiple instances of theft and identity theft.

Oh and this part too:

Since her arrest last March, Neatherlin had approached other inmates and asked them to claim they had worked for her. She also wrote letters to former inmates asking for bail money and promised to pay them from offshore accounts...

And lastly:

a child in Neatherlin's care was once sent to a Portland hospital with multiple head injuries and that she admitted to overheating bottle of milk, giving a young child burns.

With such a long sentence, you can read between the lines-- "This person is a particularly dangerous sociopath, without morals or conscience. If she lives in society, she's going to injure or kill more people in just the course of her going about her day."

Wow. Lots of downvotes for hoping a horrible person gets wrecked in prison, huh? You people are too soft. It would be better to lock her in stocks at the courthouse square and let children throw rotten food at her all day long. At least the kids could get some physical activity and learn a good lesson on responsibility.

Violence with more violence gets nobody anywhere. If that makes people "too soft", then I'm glad I live in a day and age where I don't face barbarism for criminal activity. A few hundred years ago someone would have called you soft and said we should have just cut off their head for it.